"Well, old man, I'm glad you like it. Take it back with you when you go on leave and give it to your wife."
"Er—" sighed Aurelle, "thank you, mon capitaine; it's really very kind of you. Only—you'll think me no end of a fool—you see, if it is to be for my wife, I'd like you to touch up the profile just a little. Of course you understand."
And Beltara, who was a decent fellow, adorned his friend's face with the Grecian nose and the small mouth which the gods had denied him.
CHAPTER II
DIPLOMACY
"We are not foreigners; we are English; it is you that are foreigners."—An English Lady Abroad.
When Dr. O'Grady and Aurelle had succeeded, with some difficulty, in obtaining a room from old Madame de Vauclère, Colonel Parker went over to see them and was charmed with the château and the park.
France and England, he said, were the only two countries in which fine gardens were to be found, and he told the story of the American who asked the secret of those well-mown lawns and was answered, "Nothing is simpler: water them for twelve hundred years."
Then he inquired timidly whether he also might not be quartered at the château.
"It wouldn't do very well, sir; Madame is mortally afraid of new-comers, and she has a right, being a widow, to refuse to billet you."
"Aurelle, my boy, do be a good fellow, and go and arrange matters."